The Victorian Second Life

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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The story thus far...

I am but a character in a virtual world called Second Life. Perhaps you have heard of it?

I found this new world in December 2007, and like most everyone else who arrives on these virtual shores, spent my first few weeks trying to find my footing. I initially took the standard path: camping, blingy shoes, clubbing.

That got old pretty quick.

Then it occurred to me that as a virtual world, there had to be more to it.

I was fortunate about that time to wander into a place called Neko Gardens. The garden's caretakers, Jett and Jade, took me under their wing and it became my first home in SL. At the time, I had no idea what a Neko was. It had never occurred to me to be anything else besides human in this virtual world.

Neko Gardens was a delightful blend of feline, fairy and zen. One could sleep in a giant flower or swim in a sapphire waterfall. That might seem silly, but it was just the kind of escape I needed at that time.

Sadly, Neko Gardens, at least in the incarnation I knew it when I first met Jett and Jade, is no longer. But that sense of community they fostered there has stayed with me. I am so grateful for their kindness and generosity. It set the tone for how I have led my life in both of the worlds I reside in.

But back to the garden. As I settled in I began to broaden my horizons and explore other sims. I started plugging various search terms in -- and to my delight, one of the search returns was 22 Baker Street, located on the Victorian sim, Caledon.

From there, I began to wonder if such a thing as "role play" existed in SL. It did!

I drifted through many amazing times and places, all fantastically re-created down to the last pixel, until one day I finally discovered an era that spoke to me -- the Victorian Old West.

So, one frigid February afternoon, a finely dressed redhead descended the steps of a rickety stagecoach, stepping into the slush and snow covered street of a little mining town in the Black Hills of South Dakota... Deadwood, circa 1876.

I chose the title of this blog, "The Victorian Closet," because it seemed an appropriate description for what will be my musings about Victorian fashion, both as a designer of Victorian clothing in Second Life, and as an amateur historian in my "First Life." I use the term fashion in the broadest sense -- not just clothing, but customs, attitudes and ... well, those things one might find literally or metaphorically in a Victorian closet.